So after being hospitalised with food poisoning, several collapsed bridges, a series of broken machetes and nearly two months of waiting, we’re finally in Malua.
We actually arrived almost two weeks ago but it’s been a pretty hectic time trying to cram three months of fieldwork into forty days. I’m writing this in between entering dung beetle data into an excel spreadsheet!
We packed (maybe over-packed?) everything into the pickup at Danum and set off wondering what the road to Malua would be like. The last time we’d gone, there had been huge holes in the track, which was in the early stages of being reclaimed by the jungle. But we’d had assurances from colleagues at the Sabah Forestry Department that the diggers were on their way and sure enough they’d come. The road was unrecognisable. This is one of those really satisfying times where I can show you a before/after photo…
Malua seems a lot more remote than Danum. There’s no refrigeration, no electricity during the day, no working showers and tourists aren’t allowed to come here. To be able to charge our laptops we have to use a surge controller because the generator has a tendency of frazzling valuable electronics. Home is a mattress with a mosquito net in a tin-roofed hut, the water we boil to drink is often brown, we share our kitchen with cockroaches, fire ants, bats and the occasional toad, and our bathroom with a spider half the size of Kazakhstan.
I absolutely love it here.
The local guys are hilarious. They’re also always giving us food foraged from the forest or the river—from weird broccoli-like ferns to freshly caught fish—and are insanely good at badminton. (We bought them a new volleyball and net so we’d at least have a shot at giving them a good game at something)!
The river is a dream, clearer that a clear glass of particularly clear water—so who needs a shower?
And spending 6 hours a day chopping kilometres of new trails through the forest, often accompanied by Ringo and Pinky the jungle dogs, means that we go to bed every day exhausted and with a feeling of accomplishment.
I’ll be sad to leave here in just under three weeks but that’s enough from me—I need to get cracking entering this bloody data!
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